Ray Oranges' artwork at the front. Jonathan Calugi's artwork at the back.

Italianism and the Made by Italians movement

Despite the unrelenting flow of less than edifying news on failing public services and corrupted local administration, Rome has been in the spotlight for an interesting grassroots art movement: with artists such as Blu, Vhils, Reka, Moneyless and local Agostino Iacurci and Stan & Lex using the buildings as their canvas and art projects such as Big City Life and Outdoor Festival engaging the creative industry as well as the art curious, Rome in expressing a lively resistance to be pigeonholed in the postcard fantasy somewhere in between Martin Parr and Sorrentino’s Great Beauty that we grew so accustomed to.

Outdoor Festival is one of the most interesting projects both for the artists selection and the stunning location (an abandoned factory that has been saved from oblivion — or more certainly, redevelopment), and this year’s edition has opened its doors to Italianism, a one-day event focusing on the new Italian visual scene.

“ The aim is to capture the contemporary Italian creative scene with the help of young and original talents”, says Renato Fontana creative director of the event.
“The geographical migration of Italian talents to other countries and that recently had a significant increment has produced an interesting phenomenon — we think it is more correct to say “Made by Italians” rather than “Made in Italy”.

With the contribution of 100 and plus artists, Italianism presented original artwork in form of an exhibition on a “I” canvass as well as live talks aimed at exploring first hand the experiences of the Made by Italians. Although Machas was created and developed in the UK and has fiercely created a global approach, it is undeniable that it is part of the Made by Italians movement — and we were absolutely delighted to contribute the event, both with our Artists and as Machas.

Machas Artists Ray and Jonathan created two original artworks for the art exhibition, Ufo5 performed a paper live installation, Leonardoworx created the bumper video for the event whilst Machas’ founder Valentina took the live stage to discuss the perks and lows of being an Italian born living and working abroad.

“The conference was incredibly interesting as it gave the opportunity to a very different audience to listen and exchange ideas on how people in the creative world can achieve their goals and aspirations,” Valentina says.”We were asked to share how Machas started, how the English bureaucracy was instrumental in making our vision reality and, more in detail, the peculiarity of our approach to nurturing talents.”

Italianism first edition was a very successful and as Valentina highlights “it was great to see that people are not giving up on Italy but they are actually trying really hard to make a change — for the better. I felt honoured to be here and share my experience of Machas. Renato was the perfect host and I am sure this is only be the beginning of Italianism”.